Lights

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Ziggy953

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Feb 8, 2006
Messages
9,149
Location
Mount Laurel, NJ
There were a few people that asked me to show my lighting setup. These are a couple of quick shots I took last night. I just didn't have time to get them posted. I have to take the canopy off tomorrow to do a bit of cleaning on the tank and while it is off I will take some more pics of it.

The 2 small fans pull air into the canopy and the large center fan blows heat out.

The bulbs are: 175wMH (20k) 110w VHO Actinic URIs (48") I told someone that the only change I'm going to make is to get 46.5" VHO bulbs next time to allow a little more room for the endcaps.

lightsoffaci8.jpg


lightsonale7.jpg


I hope this helps some of you guys out. Again I will post more pics of this when I take it off the tank.
 
Yeah....that is going to be moved....it was a temporary solution to moving some heat (not to do with the tank) out of our fire room and upstairs.
 
Thanks. Looks good. Being that the fans are so close together, does the middle fan pull out the cool air going into the canopy by the other two smaller fans? I like the idea of putting the fan on top in the middle to remove heat, but I think I'm going to put the two smaller fans on both sides of the canopy to have it blow cool air onto the water surface.

Are the fans on a timer to coincide with the lights?
 
I thought that at first that they would be just making a loop in and then right back out, but I can feel the air blowing down into the canopy and I can certainly feel it blowing out with the middle fan. I have them on a timer but I have been keeping them on 24/7 lately. My tank temp stays pretty stable unless it gets really cold in the house and then it dips a little bit. There isn't a back on the canopy so it is open to allow air to flow in and out in the back. The front corners are open too so I have good air movement. The reason I did not put the fans on the ends is I did not want to see fans on either side of the canopy it would take away from the look.
 
Yes I knew there must've been a good reason for doing it this way. Your point now has me thinking of hanging (the fans that blow air into the tank) from the top of the canopy so that they run across the back. The back of the canopy is open so I would need to hang them from the top to run along the back.
I like the idea of placing the fan that removes hot air on top of canopy. In order to do this I must cut a hole into my light fixture. It can be done as I saw a DIY on this topic on Melevsreef.com.

You mentioned that the fans are on a timer. Do you have a timer that has inputs for multiple lights/fans? I have two metal Halide fixtures, a VHO, a set of moon lights and fans, that requires at least 5 inputs. If not have you seen any that have multiple inputs for multiple fixtures?
 
My ballast have timers...you saw those in the under tank shots. 1 for the VHO and 2 for the MH. I have a dual MH ballast and each bulb has it's own power and switch. The fans all three run from the same 12v power source, so there is only 1 plug needed for all 3. right now I don't have them coming on and going off. The tank stays pretty constant over night with the fans running.
 
Did you actually make the canopy itself or just installed all the goodies?
 
Great craftsmanship! Are the two pieces of wood on each side of the tank there to support the canopy? Is it to heavy? I was just wondering because I'm currently making a canopy myself and I have a feeling it might be too heavy and will need supports as well.
 
Wow that looks great :D I think I like the rope inlay more then anything :lol: Has a great nautical feel to it and compliments the whole setup very well :D

Photo is kind of dark though, is the stand and top lighter like below?

tankcabinetsz1.jpg
 
tecwzrd said:
Photo is kind of dark though, is the stand and top lighter like below?

No its all the same wood the reason it looks so light in that pic is because the doors and hood were not stained when I took that photo.

The wood/rope wrapped supports on either side are because the tank is a bow front and the hood and stand are rectandular. I did this on purpose to have something different then everybody else. The rope was my wifes idea. It started because the tank is sitting on a piece of foam and it showed so I took the rope and went around the base of the tank and from there rope started popping up everywhere.

The canopy is actually very light. I can pick it up by myself. It looks very beefy but it isn't. It weighs less then the ballast I have to run the MHs.
 
Back
Top Bottom